Looking around my cluttered house, it seems that my kids have plenty of choices for things to play with. However, that doesn’t stop them from uttering that age-old childhood complaint… “Mom…we’re BORED!”

Typically when I hear those words, I run through our latest toys. Nope, they are not interested in those today. After that doesn’t work, I try for long-time favorites. Nope, they still aren’t hearing anything they feel like playing with. Crayons? Puzzles? Painting? Nope. No. Not today.

What’s a mom to do? Get creative of course! While I love crafting, cooking is not my strong point. But when my kids are bored with play-doh or clay, they still want to play with homemade dough. It only takes a few ingredients, a pot on the stove and if you keep it in an airtight container, it lasts for a long time. I keep ours dough-colored, but you could also add food coloring to change it up even more.

My youngest recently made flubber at pre-K. You know, that runny dough-type stuff from the movie? He begged me to make it at home, so I did what any modern-mamma would do, and Googled it. It didn’t seem that difficult. We only needed white glue, borax and water.

I followed the directions, let them choose a color to add, and we quickly had a bowl full of flubber.

I set them up on the table with a plastic tablecloth and some cookie sheets and let them go to town. They must have played for an hour. Quietly. We all know what a blessing that can be.

Another idea for when your kids are in a “what to play with” rut are printables. There are a host of websites that offer coloring sheets, games and cutouts that you can print out for your kids to play with. It can be a new theme every week if you want, or it can center on their favorite TV show, book or character.